Last week, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission, formed by the Government of Nepal to investigate the accident of 9N-AME on the 24th of July 2024, released their final report. There’s a lot going on here, so I hope you are seated comfortably! New! You can also listen to an automatically generated audio file of the…
Read more… 25 Jul 25
On the 12th of June 2025, a Boeing 787-8, registered in India as VT-ANB, was operating as flight Air India 171 for a passenger flight from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick. The Boeing Dreamliner crashed shortly after take off, killing all of the crew, 229 passengers and 19 people on the ground. One passenger survived with…
Read more… 18 Jul 25
On the 12th of August in 2024, a pilot fatally crashed a Robinson R44 into the top of a hotel building in Cairns, Australia. The pilot held a commercial helicopter licence issued by the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority, including type ratings for the Robinson R44 helicopter. He had 157.8 hours flying experience, with 16.8…
Read more… 4 Jul 25
On the 4th of June 2023, a Cessna Citation 560 aircraft crashed in Montebello, Virginia, killing the pilot and three passengers. The NTSB released their report on the 14th of May, leading to a very Citation-heavy month this month on Fear of Landing! The Cessna Citation 560, also known as the Citation V, is a…
Read more… 30 May 25
On the 28th of June 2024 a Boeing 777-236, registered in the UK as G-VIIT, rejected a take-off after reaching V1 during the take-off roll on 26L at London Gatwick Airport. In order to understand what happened that day, we need to understand V-speeds: relative speeds which need to be calculated for every flight. The…
Read more… 16 May 25
On the 3rd of March 2023, a passenger in a private jet died after severe injuries in the cabin, which were originally reported as caused by severe turbulence. This was quickly picked up by the mainstream media and, for the next few weeks, news and oped articles focused on the ongoing issues of changing weather…
Read more… 9 May 25
The Anatomy of an A350–CRJ Collision at Atlanta
On the 10th of September 2024, an Airbus A350 took the tail off of a Bombardier CRJ at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia, USA. Delta Air Lines flight 295…
Why KLM Cut the Steering Cables on Two Perfectly Functional Boeing 737s
Last month, we looked at the night of 28th of November 2004 at Barcelona Airport. KLM 1673 ran off the runway at high speed, stopping just short of a canal.…
How Important is Having a Sterile Cockpit?
This question was posted to r/flying by a private pilot who wanted to know: do airline pilots ever engage in small talk about irrelevant things during taxiing, run-up, takeoff, and…
Someone has to write the TAF
It turns out that there a person sitting there deciding what the weather is going to do. Which seems obvious, except that I had somehow never asked msyelf who “someone”…
The CIA's Shark Screen
Today we have a guest post from the CIA! In their archives, researching something completely different, I found the answer to a question I never thought to ask. I immediately…
The First Jet to Land on an Aircraft Carrier (Deliberately)
“The Vampire was the first jet to land on a moving aircraft carrier deliberately.” This quote from Airshow Luke, our MC at the Legacy of Liberty airshow, made me almost…
Bird Strikes, Balloon Landings and Falling in Love with a Boeing 777
The exciting news on Fear of Landing this week was a huge scare about critical vulnerabilities in PHP. PHP is widely used on the web, including in WordPress, which is…
Petrified, Petrified, Petrified
There’s been some interesting reporting in the UK media about a “near disaster” over Canary Wharf involving the captain having to intervene (the horror!) after air data systems failed on…